Medals are made of Honour

 

When I think of Melbourne, I suffer recall.

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My dear sister Wendy was trying to open the doors of Melbourne to me and my 11 month old boy.  But she did not know that so tightly stitched were my scars to the very word ‘Melbourne’, and ever grey, bitterly cold – seized was my mind of the streets; she did not know that knotted and tied were my memories, like a blanket I had knitted around myself through the years and cast off when I came of age and ran  – traumatised was my association with Melbourne, and I just could not live there.   

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That blanket, like a skin shed, it spoiled the ground where it fell when I cast myself in flight.  It was a dark shadow.  It was ominous.  It may come to life if I step back in Melbourne, and strangle me with vicious recount of my father’s words, his certainty that I would “end up in an alley with a needle up yer arm”. If I returned to Melbourne I may become what dad always knew I would:  an addict who amounted to nothing.  No no, I could not live in Melbourne again.

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How Wendy had found freedom for her heart to breathe in the city where my father had almost killed mine, I did not know.  How she could exist in the same airspace as him, I did not know.  Had Wendy actually “got over” our childhood?  But how do you get over a scar, for scars are branding by Love torched, are they not.  My body’s layers protective of my psyche were weakly developed, so my father’s words were able to burn right through me and brand my mind: talentless “precocious little snot.” What, “You think your shit don’t stink?”  ‘My poo?  Everyone’s poo smells (dad). I don’t understand you.’ I was so confused, the day dad asked me that, his squinting, beady eyes set deep within a furrowed forehead.  I can’t remember why he said it.  I must have been happy about something, or feeling confident.   I felt good when I did Irish Dancing and won many, many medals and trophies from competitions that my friend’s mother so kindly drove me around to compete in.   I also felt good once, having done so well in a German poem recital contest. I was proud, though it was a sin to be proud, having learned the lines, their meanings, and delivered them with my great stage voice, my posture straight.  ”Die Stadt” (The City) was the name of the poem.  I can never forget that wonderful feeling – most especially the sparkle in my German teacher’s eyes as I paused and punctuated with great effect.  It was days like that, when dad would bring me back to the ground.  

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Over time I realised that my medals were all trash, just junk metal.  I hadn’t put them up anywhere, but kept them in a jar alongside my jar of the pills I collected from the floor of dad’s room, for my suicide one day.  When I realised how silly I was, keeping a jar of stupid medals – they weren’t even all Firsts – I threw them in the bin.

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But now that I know medals are made of honour, not metal, which honour is polished by the care you take with them – placing them high, dusting them – I decided that when Daniel won medals, ribbons and trophies, which he surely would, I would display them in his bedroom proudly.  I would make a point of looking at them all one day and commenting how many he had.  And every day Daniel woke, the glimmer of his medals would reinforce in himself how much he had accomplished; thereby  proving he could accomplish furthermore.

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Daniel burbled out a seemingly eloquent string of “words” that of tone and lilt were clearly communicating to me something about the tambourine he was holding up. 

“Really?” I asked.  I loved that toy library. 

Another musical waterfall flowed from his mouth, pebbles of punctuation perfectly placed, and eyes wide open that I might see in their depths that he really meant it, what he was saying.  I put down Wendy’s letter, which ended with love to us both, and went to Daniel.   He received me into his space gladly, I could tell, and continued his expressions about the tambourine as he banged it on the floor, paused to see if I understood his example, and then banged it again.

“Right!” I said to Daniel.  “And you can do this” – I tapped the tambourine with my fingers.  Daniel watched with interest.  “Or this” I said, slapping it gently with my open palm.  Daniel, still holding the tambourine up between us, looked at me upon the slap and then informed me of something which I could not recall that night when I wrote in my journal of love to him, and which really, I could not have interpreted anyhow.

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“Dad always treated you the worst,” my sister Deana says to this day.  Yet I think of the effect he had on her, living on medication now and what I see as ‘maintaining’ her life, and I thank God I had whatever it was I had, that gave me endurance.  I could not say my father was the cause of Deana’s mental afflictions, but he did not help her state of mind at all.  He was detrimental to her mental health, as he was to mine… and Mum’s I am dead certain.

“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:  and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”  The Bible

I don’t know.

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Touching Daniel’s soft hair and cheeks as he looked down at the tambourine he’d placed on the floor to collect plastic blocks in, I figured it was best to just keep on going.  I was in Perth, they were in Melbourne, and so be it.  I didn’t have family support in Perth, but nor did I know what I could mentally endure in Melbourne, in hope of such support.  I didn’t have friends with babies in Perth, but nor did such await in Melbourne.  I wasn’t in mothers’ clubs in Perth, so how would I become suddenly capable in Melbourne?  Perth was Melbourne in effect, but without the dark shadow – rather, instead, stunning sunshine.  No, I would not re-root us.

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Roots.  One thing I did realise, was that I was connected with my family whether I liked it or not.  I was born of that tree, and  that cannot be undone.  Grow my face toward the western sun I may, and stretch my arms across the vast expanse of our land to dip them in the western Ocean, but no matter how far from my roots I determined myself to grow, I could not disclaim them.  Family be the soil which nourishes you or may be barren, their blood the flow spiritually between us, but Destiny is the trellis I erect as I build my days with choices.  Fractured a trellis has crept my vines over time, but I would strengthen the framework – somehow I would, somehow, so that my son might grow alongside me proudly and branch off soundly.

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And I would blossom one day, I would – one day before winter withers me, and I die.  

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Copyright Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

Between BEEF TITS and DAIRY QUEEN, there’s something going on here

She broke her neck while training to get her black belt in tae kwon do (which didn’t matter!) whereas I only got to purple belt in kung fu and I didn’t break anything.  Sure, we’re all different, and that’s exactly why I love Chattermaster’s blog.

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Yes!  This is another edition of my inspired-by-subbers project to do an expose of everyone on my blog roll … and when I’m done, to shuffle it up by adding MORE subscribers (subbers only; paying it back) and expose more of you to each other.

My project here, it’s sort of like we’re in this big cyberspace gathering at someone’s mansion (surely one of you have a mansion??) & I’m intro-ing subbers to subbers as we motley of people from all nations enjoy our union in cyberspace.

“This is Colleen of Chattermaster and in her ‘Who I Am’, she says what matters most, apart from family and the obvious, is Dairy Queen!  We don’t have that in Australia, I wish she’d post me some!”

‘Red’ wanders by, nibbling a canapé.

“Oh! Here, Red!  Everyone meet Red she’s got a great blog called Momma’s Money Matters that covers subjects like Friday’s Follies and Story Time and Writer’s Spotlight – so varied, & interesting – and subjects of real substance, too.”

A waiter passes by with a tray full of drinks and gestures toward our group.

“Oh yes, please, I’d love another tomato juice.  Thanks.  Want a drink, Francis?  We’ve got champagne, pineapple juice, good ol’ Foster’s Beer from Australia.  Hey everyone, meet Francis.  He’s my latest subber, subbed on 9^th May – how cool!  Francis’ page is Niltsi’s Spirit.  He lives in a town north of Ontario, Canada.  Francis is into graphics, photography, painting, wood carving and his blog, like many, is about LIFE.  That’s what I love about wordpress – it’s life here, life there, life everywhere that I’m not, and I love hearing it.  Francis’  latest post is about his friend Lucinda who needs help and all you need to do is click a link and you’re helping her.  You’ve got to check it out.  And vote!  It’s a great cause!”

Viveka wanders by and Michael smiles at her.

“Viveka!”  I cry delightedly.  ”Great to see you at the cyber mansion, at Wordsfall Subbers Unite 2012!   Michael, you’ve got to meet Viveka.  She’s got the most sensually suggestive gravatar I’ve ever seen – and she photographed it herself using a mirror!  From Sweden!  Lovely!  But she’s more than a pretty picture, BELIEVE me – you’ve got to read her blog, My Guilty Pleasures.   Viveka, this is Michael, or Ocular Manifestation Maelstrom, which I think speaks for itself – hee hee!  No, no-one says it better than Michael himself.  His blog is ‘A typhoon of thoughts, words, pictures thrown in a blender and hit frappe!‘”

Noeleen notices David Bowie has stepped into the room and heads straight for her.  She trembles with all the delight, esteem, wonder, admiration, respect, ‘love’ she’s held in her being for Bowie since he entered her life, by the vibe of music, at the age of 12.  David Bowie joins the group of subbers in the cyber space party mansion.

“Hi,” the most brilliant Mr David Bowie says with his GORGEOUS lips, teeth, cheekbones, eyes, tone of voice, manner, stance, style, “I’m David – “ and UNFORTUNATELY, Noeleen faints in cyberspace, and when she comes-to, can’t remember the rest of the party (cryyyyyyyyyyyyy).

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But I digress!!  So sorry.

This post is an accolade to Colleen’s blog, Chatter master, which features on my blog roll.

In her post Black Belt Path to Life, Colleen starts out with saying she weighed 220 pds.  I didn’t know how much that was as I’m used to kilograms in Australia.  When I learned it is 99.79 kilograms I was, like, wow… HOWEVER, thank goodness Colleen’s daughter had a horrible, non-inspiring and totally discouraging cheerleading coach, because now she weighs 155 pds – or 70 kg!  I know that doesn’t exactly figure in so few sentences, but you’ve really got to read the post to understand:  and it’s a great story, inspirational, true.  Sometimes we’re devastated in life when something doesn’t go our way (cheerleading) only to find there was a greater plan panning out and life actually DOES go our way, alternatively, and what a journey it proves.

Chattermaster is what I consider a very down to earth – INTERESTING – blog of someone’s daily life.  Now, if Colleen were unemployed, childless and a fan of Judge Judy and Days of Our Lives, that wouldn’t be so, but she’s not.  She lives a very full life – decidedly full – and writes about it, from delving into family history (and I LOVE old b/w photos, the faces in them, posture, the look in the eyes which appear to be viewing you there in 2012, looking into them, then).

Colleen’s posts are so varied, from old ladies objecting to being served beef tits for dinner to declaring I’m Not Gay and I Don’t Hate You (this one was sad) to Integrity is Not Part Time.

One of her best posts, I’d say though, was Colleen’s collaboration with me. She wrote it, I was inspired by it, I asked could I video her words and she said yes. I was stoked. I took to the words, the meaning, the message immediately, and together Colleen and me made ‘I am Not Ashamed‘ 

I am Not Ashamed

Try I may for this accolade to subber Chatter master, I really can’t sum up her blog style because it’s just so, so, how do I say this? um…

so Colleen!

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Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

The Great Comfort of Unconsciousness

Daniel and me had dinner and a quiet night of doing little, just letting the seconds fall from the clock until a pool of time had collected around us and we ought to bed before we drowned in the liquidity of existence.

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Daniel was a bit hyper and difficult to settle, so I had to attack him with tickles and nonsense for some of his unspent energy to be expelled in giggles and gurgles.  The simple joy of my affection upon him that shone from his eyes was a gift to behold.  I felt awed at my own self that I could give so much, so easily.  I had never been inclined to babies, but here was my own born, and a love that I never knew myself capable of, flowed from me.  I realized, bending over the cot and laughing at Daniel’s closed eyes, chubby cheeks and smiling mouth emitting the music of happiness, that my own son had taught me love.  For the very first time in my life, I felt love.  I had not ever felt it from my father, could not consciously recall it from my mother, my sisters were basically strangers with the familiarity of family – and other people, well, they were just people in my life.  In truth and fact, for all my time on this planet, for this century at least, I had not felt love outward or inward.   If ever I were to write a book, I would inscribe at its opening:  ‘To my only son, Daniel, who taught me Love’.

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When finally Daniel was in his cot with the white teddy I’d slept with while pregnant, to infuse it with my energy, and laying on his side eyeing me, I sat propped in my bed, the Bible in my hands.  As determined that morning, I would read the word of God until I literally collapsed into the arms of sleep.  I would keep vigil for however many nights it took, to show the spiritual visitors that this was our territory and we were protected by God.

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Oh God, was it really the word of God?  Had only man said it was? I had been told by Nuns when I was a kid, that it was.  And who told them?  Their parents?  They had faith it was; I was to have faith it was.  I had heard the argument of atheists that people believe in God “because people need to believe in something”.  I had heard the belief of Buddhism that we each are Buddhas/Gods.  I remembered as a child being taught that God is within each of us.  What is true and what is illusion in this life, I just do not know.  But I know, absolutely, that we had been haunted, and of all that I had tried, this was my only resource that I could conduct myself, put out there myself, until we won – won our home back.

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Why hadn’t the Priest blessing the place worked, I wondered.  I then suddenly wondered whether, if I flung holy water at the electrified air space that night, like I had flung my urine; if it would have caused a hissing sound too.  How curious, I wondered, wondered.

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I looked at Daniel’s eyes, anticipant, looking at me.  He knew I was doing something different tonight and watched me curiously.  I bet he was glad I had returned my bed to his room, nearby his cot.  I had separated us, thinking it was “time”, that I should for his independence, and here we were cloistered together, the door shut, me ready to speak the spirits away.  And they would listen to me?

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I wondered whether at this age, Daniel yet thought ‘why’?  Would he think, ‘Why is Mum reading aloud tonight in her bed?  Why is Mum’s bed back in my room?’  The child health nurse told me there will come a ‘why’ stage.  Not even I know what answers I will give.  I never guessed that I would be in a position this lifetime, of teaching another generation ‘why’.  Some of it will be the factual why, and some my own moral and spiritual why.  I will actually be teaching my offspring my own beliefs of existence and purpose, reason and, well, why not rhyme.

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To think I will be affecting another human being with my own mind of things is really pretty heavy going.  I had hardly been taught myself.  I had to “make of it what I could”, mostly.  I was given Roman Catholic direction from the time of the orphanage – age six, and while living with Aunty Betty, but once I reached dad’s domain, that’s when I was left to try and survive the years best I could,  and find within myself whatever I could to endure.  And I had been a ship adrift.  And I had been an island.  And I had been madly driven at times.  And I had been so depressed that darkness was the only light I could see.  Oh, what kind of God gave to me this beautiful child – me, my damaged psyche, depressed heart, my suicidal ideations that consume me for days on end?  It is the same God that gave me the heart which flutters with a butterfly’s wings as I watch it hovering over golden flowers, sunny days, feeling warm sunshine on the crown of my head, smelling ocean in the air, marvelling at the colours of nature, and dreaming as the butterfly leaves the flower and flutters off into a distance, into its own existence.

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Oh, my head – I need to put it to bed! Too much.  I smiled at Daniel, said, “Shhhhhhh, sleeeeeeep,” and opened the Bible.

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I suddenly thought of Chris.  Given my desperation when I rang and he came over with the Chinese written signs to ward off the unseen presences, and when I rang again to say that hadn’t fully worked – something had galloped up my belly in the middle of the night, literally, physically, and pounced off my chest; given the terror of what I was experiencing, I was amazed he hadn’t rung to see how I was – and had the flinging of the urine gotten rid of the energies/powers wandering spirits/ghosts, or whatever the hell it was that had terrorized me these last weeks?  I didn’t need Chris to care about me, but as the mother of his child, given his child was involved … again, I just did not understand Chris.

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Skipping the puzzling begat and begotting, I read that God had made the world and created man.  I read how he put man to sleep, took a rib, and created woman from him.  I read aloud and clearly what I believed to be the word of God, so that the vibrations of His word would fill our room, be present, and be the charge of our room.

“This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh:

she shall be called woman (f)

for she was taken out of man”

(f) The Hebrew for woman sounds like the Hebrew for man

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I read how Eve was tempted by the serpent, the apple, and how she and Adam hid from God as he was walking through the garden of Eden because they were suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  I wondered why we humans ought not know of good and evil.  Maybe that was heaven, how things were back then:  living, doing your daily work, God walking by every now and then in His resplendence.  What could progress from that, though?  Nothing, so we would just exist, emanating joy.

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I read about Cain and Abel, the sons of Eve, but was confused when the Bible said that “Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant”.  The only way Cain could have had a wife was if Eve gave birth to a girl before she gave birth to Cain.  As “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living”,  I accepted that maybe people lived hundreds of years in the beginning of time.  Maybe Eve did have a daughter first who grew up, and then she had Cain and then she had Abel – but why was the birth of Eve’s daughter not worth a mention?   “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. That made it sound like her first born.  I didn’t quite get it.

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I read onward, including that Cain’s son, Enoch, was born a son named Irad, and “Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael… Lamech.  Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.”  The Bible continued to only mention women as appendages to men – the ones who “gave birth to a son”.  With all this giving birth to sons, I didn’t comprehend where the women were coming from.  And really, did it have to start with the birth of man in time that men had two wives?  What, in moral conscience, is the purpose of two wives?  I could only see that it would serve ego, and as it was fine for Lamech to marry two women, the service of ego seemed to be condoned.

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I found the Bible difficult to swallow.  I was only on chapter 5, ‘From Adam to Noah’, and it seemed to have regard for the importance of only one half of the human race.  I couldn’t remember learning this when I was a child – that the birth of girls are not worth mentioning, but when they are a wife and bearing a son they are worth mentioning.

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I had to not think too hard, and continue reading aloud the word of God.  I had to have faith this was the answer:  the word of God filling my home so that nothing else could fit into it.  I looked at Daniel, and his eyes were half shut.  This should work a double treat.

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I read past midnight, when I was slumped against my pillow and Daniel was safe in unconsciousness.  I felt mild fear of what the night would bring, the hours 3-4 a.m., when things usually happened, and I didn’t want to be awake then.  I wanted to be asleep – safe in unconsciousness like Daniel.

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I continued reading aloud to just after 1 a.m., when my mouth was dry, my eyes too, and I decided to lay fully down.  With the light still on, for I was too scared to turn it off, I lay with the closed Bible next to my head.  I put one hand on the Bible, and closed my eyes. 

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I opened my eyes again.  It was so frightening to think that if I dared close my eyes, ‘they’ may creep up on me, creep up alongside my bed – but I had to not think those things.  I had to believe, have faith, that I had put hours of vibration of the word of God into my home, and it resonated from the walls  and, like Tom once said, “Picture a white light around you – you and Daniel.  Nothing can get through that white light.”

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With these thoughts in my head, time reached up and pulled closed my eyelids so that I met unconsciousness, the great comfort of unconscious-ness.

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Copyright Noeleen&Daniel 50/50